Rethinking Intellectual Property

Rethinking Intellectual Property

Gustavo Ghidini, Professor, University of Milan and University LUISS Guido Carli, Rome, Italy

Intellectual property law is built on constitutional foundations and is underpinned by the twin freedoms of freedom of expression and freedom of economic enterprise. In this thoughtful evaluation, Gustavo Ghidini offers up a reconstruction of the core features of each intellectual property paradigm, including patents, copyright, and trademarks, suggesting measures for reform to allow intellectual property to become socially beneficial for all.

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Intellectual property law is built on constitutional foundations and is underpinned by the twin freedoms of freedom of expression and freedom of economic enterprise. In this thoughtful evaluation, Gustavo Ghidini offers up a reconstruction of the core features of each intellectual property paradigm, including patents, copyright, and trademarks, suggesting measures for reform to allow intellectual property to become socially beneficial for all.

Rethinking Intellectual Property is a deeply reflective conceptualisation of the modern principles of intellectual property law at both a national and an international level. The first chapter investigates conflicts of interests relating to intellectual property and guiding principles for their resolution within its constitutional framework. Ghidini then moves on to examine the reshaping of patent protection, and the way that the exercise of patent rights goes hand-in-hand with the competitive dynamics of technological innovation. In chapter 3, he analyses the copyright paradigm from an industrial perspective, focusing particular attention to the online distribution of material. Chapter 4 moves on to examine trademark protection, and the protection of entrepreneurial identity and brand value. Finally, he addresses the complex intersection between intellectual property law and competition law.

This book will be invaluable reading for anyone interested in the conceptual foundations of intellectual property law, and challenges the reader to re-examine their understanding of the field.

‘Professor Gustavo Ghidini has produced an original detailed study of the whole system of intellectual property law as it is changing in the light of new technologies and new commercial strategies. His new approach provides a critical study of how each constituent element of the IP “system” (patent, trademark and copyright) contains “pro-competitive antibodies” which limit as well as bestow the exclusivity of the individual IP right. He also analyses in depth the related intersections between IP and competition law and unfair competition law. The depth and the comprehensiveness of the research underpinning Ghidini’s analytic framework make this book a gem for legal practitioners and academics.’
– Steven Anderman, University of Essex, UK

‘With his new book Gustavo Ghidini presents the systematic sum of his work on the functional interdependence between intellectual property (patents, copyrights, trademarks) and the constitutional freedoms of access to knowledge, competition, and consumer choice and protection. Far more than an invitation merely to rethink the foundations and reach of intellectual property, he offers both a fresh and convincing methodology and a circumspect guide to understanding and applying intellectual property in the context of accelerated technological change, highly dynamic competition, and increasingly complex conflicts of interests. The book is a challenge and a promise of reward.’
– Hanns Ullrich, Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition, Germany

Contents: 1. Conflicts of interest, and guiding principles for their resolution within IP’s constitutional framework 2. Patent Protection of Innovation: a ‘Monopoly’ with Antibodies 3. From art to technology: copyright expansion and barriers: The evolving relation ‘right v. access’ 4. Firms’ identity and brand value in the regime of trademarks 5. On the ‘Intersection’ between IP and competition law(s) Index